Chapter Twenty Six: The Transition

VII. The Appointed Friend

⁴⁴ Anything in this world that you believe is good and valuable and worth striving for can hurt you and will do so. Not because it has the power to hurt, but just because you have denied it is but an illusion and made it real. And it is real to you. It is not nothing and through its perceived reality has entered all the world of sick illusions. All belief in sin, in power of attack, in hurt and harm, in sacrifice and death has come to you. For no one can make one illusion real and still escape the rest. For who can choose to keep the ones which he prefers and find the safety that the truth alone can give? Who can believe illusions are the same and still maintain that even one is best?

⁴⁵ Lead not your little lives in solitude with one illusion as your only friend. This is no friendship worthy of God's Son, nor one with which he could remain content. Yet God has given him a better Friend in Whom all power in earth and Heaven rests. The one illusion that you think is friend obscures His grace and majesty from you and keeps His friendship and forgiveness from your welcoming embrace. Without Him you are friendless. Seek not another friend to take His place. There is no other friend. What God appointed has no substitute, for what illusion can replace the truth?

⁴⁶ Who dwells with shadows is alone indeed, and loneliness is not the Will of God. Would you allow one shadow to usurp the throne that God appointed for your Friend if you but realized its emptiness has left yours empty and unoccupied? Make no illusion friend, for if you do, it can but take the place of Him whom God has called your Friend. And it is He who is your only Friend in truth. He brings you gifts that are not of this world, and only He to whom they have been given can make sure that you receive them. He will place them on your throne when you make room for Him on His.